by Nia Anderson
With all of her soul, Grace felt the emotion Ryan displayed when he spoke of changing his mind about the decision they’d made.
"Why didn’t he ever tell me?" she asked the empty room. She looked up as if she half expected an answer, but there was no one there.
Grace felt numb as she walked into her bedroom with the DVD in hand. She struggled to see everything that had happened in the past with new eyes. With Ryan’s eyes.
Grace didn’t stay and talk with Ms. Stewart when she dropped off the DVD. She still wasn’t quite sure that was really Ryan on that recording, or if he was simply speaking for the benefit of his mother.
Mr. Thompson was in the kitchen cooking when Grace returned. Her father had recently gotten into the hobby of cooking and a new Trinidad cookbook had him trying his hand at a new dish almost every day.
"Smells good," Grace lied, but she wanted to encourage her dad.
"I’m glad you think so. It’s what’s for dinner." He smiled.
"What is it?"
"Pickled lizard."
"Are you kidding?" Grace looked horrified as she attempted to peek into the pot.
"Yes, I am."
Grace and her father shared a laugh. It felt good. As she watched him happily working away, she wondered if she had the courage to ask him the questions Ryan had asked his mother. Did she want to know what he really thought?
"Dad?"
"Yeah?"
Grace was afraid once she received his full attention. "Nothing," she changed her mind.
"You sure? What’s going on?" He put his spoon down and covered the pot he had been stirring.
"Do you think the transplant is going to be successful?" she asked.
"Grace, you’ve got to stop worrying. Matthew is going to have the best doctors watching over him. It’s going to be fine,” her father assured her.
Grace nodded. She knew that was what he was going to say. After all, her mother had been saying the very same thing all day long and they were often in agreement on most things.
As Grace was exiting the kitchen, she finally worked up the courage to ask her father if, after all this time, he was still disappointed with her.
"Dad…"
She didn’t get a chance to finish asking her question before the telephone rang. Her father wiped his hands on the towel he had tucked in his waistband before picking it up.
"Hello?….Yes, may I ask who’s calling?…Okay, one moment.” Mr. Thompson covered the mouthpiece of the phone with one hand. "Grace, it’s Ryan. He said something about flight information. Do you want to take it?"
"Of course. I’ll take it in the den,” Grace said. She heard her father tell Ryan that she’d be a moment.
When Grace heard her father hang up she bypassed the normal greeting. "Flight information?" she asked instead.
"To California. You’re going, right?" Ryan asked.
"Yeah, but I thought you weren’t going."
"My mom just told me about it. I moved so there’s been kind of a problem getting information. “Ryan glazed over that last bit. "What flight are you taking?"
Despite the awkward ending to their last encounter, Grace and Ryan spoke benevolently. Grace filled Ryan in on her flight information and her hotel accommodations. They agreed to share a rental car and a ride to the airport.
Grace considered asking Ryan about the recording she’d seen, but then she remembered she’d promised his mother that she wouldn’t mention it. As she hung up the phone she hoped that the coming trip was an opportunity to gain insight into how Ryan really felt after all these years.
Chapter thirteen
Ryan sat in the driveway of the Thompson home waiting for Grace to appear with her luggage. When he’d pulled up she’d waved to him from the front window to let him know that she had seen him. He was grateful that he didn’t have to go up to the front door. He had never liked going to Grace’s parent’s house.
When Grace did emerge with her baggage, Ryan got out of the car to help her load it into the trunk. She had three bags to his one.
"It is just three days, isn’t it?" Ryan double-checked.
"Yes, but I just like to have extra. In case something happens,” Grace stated.
Ryan nodded. With Grace, some things never changed. Being over-prepared was one of those things.
The ride to the airport was silent. Grace wanted to ask Ryan about his sudden interest in things with Matthew, but she knew that would most likely start and argument and if she had to spend the next three days with him, she didn’t want to argue with him.
"The hotel rooms were expensive." Ryan made small talk.
"Everything is expensive in California,” Grace agreed. "Thank goodness for those online discount brokers."
"You went through the ‘net?"
"You didn’t?"
There was another dead silence as each one of them tried to think of something neutral to talk about.
"How’s the documentary going?" Grace asked.
"I’m not doing it." Ryan looked in his side mirrors as he changed traffic lanes.
"Oh. What changed your mind?"
"It just got to be…well, I don’t think I’d ever watch it and it got to the point that I had heard everything I needed to hear after one interview."
"Who’s interview was that?"
"My mom’s."
"Oh." Grace reacted as if she didn’t already know. She nervously fidgeted with her fingers as she watched the scenery pass by the window. "Were you ever planning on interviewing me?"
Ryan shrugged as if he hadn’t given it much thought even though he had. "I probably would have if I’d stuck with the project."
"What would you have asked me?"
"That’s one of the main reasons I quit, actually. I didn’t want to hear most of the answers to the questions I was asking."
Grace admired Ryan’s honesty. Silence fell upon the car once again.
"Probably what your perspective on the whole…you know…was...” Ryan failed to finish his thought for fear that Grace would give him an answer.
"You don’t know?" Grace asked. If her memory served correctly, she had made her feelings abundantly clear to Ryan.
"I know what I think your perspective is. But you’ve actually never said…with words. You gave me the silent treatment for awhile. I guess I could read between the lines a little." Ryan looked over at Grace briefly and grinned.
"Well that’s a pretty broad question." Grace couldn’t even begin to answer him.
"Basically, I’d ask if you think I ruined your life,” Ryan blurted out.
"No.” Grace frowned. "Why would you think that?"
"Because…remember how you wanted to wait before having sex and I talked you into it? I know you had lots of things you wanted to do, but then you got pregnant, and…”
"Yeah, but that didn’t stop me from doing any of the things I wanted to do…except maybe becoming a fitness model,” Grace joked.
"So you don’t blame me for everything?"
"Ryan, people don’t get pregnant by themselves. Even if I wanted to blame you for everything, I couldn’t. I was there, too. And I wanted to be with you as much as you wanted to be with me."
Grace’s last sentence embarrassed her to say. She hoped Ryan wouldn’t comment about it and he didn’t. She quickly changed the subject to one of airline food, or lack thereof. Ryan seemed eager to discuss the new topic and pretty soon Grace and Ryan were chatting away about issues that didn’t require much depth or emotion.
Once they arrived at the airport, Grace checked her purse for her flight itinerary. Ryan put a baggage tag on his luggage and helped Grace with her three bags.
"Where are you sitting?" Grace asked Ryan for his seat number.
"Next to you. The seat was available when I made my flight arrangements,” Ryan stated matter-of-factly.
Grace didn’t say as much, but she was glad Ryan was going to be next to her on the plane. She was uneasy about flying and it would be nice to have someone familia
r to share the ride with.
After they’d boarded the plane and all the small talk was done, Grace settled back with a magazine. Ryan donned a pair of headphones and began watching the in-flight movie. As he was fiddling with the cord, Grace glanced over at his hands. She had always loved the look of Ryan’s hands, and now they were just a grown up version of what she had admired in her youth. When she looked up he was watching her. She quickly turned her attention back to the magazine.
"This movie is stupid,” Ryan announced. He took off the headphones and placed them in their original position. Across the aisle, Grace saw a few people following suit.
Ryan reclined his seat and put his head back in preparation of taking a little nap. Grace finished flipping through her magazine before sitting back and closing her eyes. In a matter of minutes, both she and Ryan were fast asleep.
It seemed like the blink of an eye before the pilot was speaking over the loudspeaker that the nonstop flight had arrived in San Francisco, CA. Grace opened her eyes and noticed that she was resting her head on Ryan’s shoulder. She quickly straightened up. Although Ryan had been awake, he pretended to be awakened by Grace’s returning of her seat to an upright position. He stretched and faked a yawn.
"Are we there yet?" he asked.
"Yes, thank goodness. I hate airplanes."
"Me too."
The real adventure began when Ryan and Grace arrived at their hotel. Ryan supplied his reservation confirmation number and received his room key no problem. When Grace stepped up to the counter with her confirmation number and credit card, the front desk associate had a surprise for her.
"We don’t have a room in your name,” he stated flatly.
"I beg your pardon?" Grace was tired and she was certain she hadn’t heard correctly.
"Thompson? There isn’t one in our system.” The young man repeated himself.
"But I have a confirmation number,” Grace insisted.
"Yeah…I don’t know what to tell you."
Customer service training was obviously lacking in this hotel chain. Grace requested to speak with a manager. After a few minutes, a woman who appeared to be in the middle of her lunch break came and stood before Grace.
"How can I help you?" she asked dryly.
"I made reservations for a room and now I’m being told I have no reservation. I even have a confirmation number." Grace restated her dilemma.
"We show nothing under that number,” the manager said.
"You did." Ryan stepped up beside Grace. "Because when I called, I gave her number and said I wanted to book for the same dates she had."
"And you have a room?" the manager looked at Ryan.
Ryan nodded and provided the paperwork he’d just been given. The manager punched a few numbers in the computer screen. Suddenly the expression on her face changed completely. She became extremely cordial.
"Are you two together?" she asked.
"Traveling together, yes,” Grace clarified.
"Okay, well I see what happened…” The manager smiled to soften the blow. "Whoever made your reservation," she pointed at Ryan, "must have thought you wanted to be with her…they combined your reservation with hers and that generated a new confirmation number and voided the old one."
"What?" Grace didn’t understand.
"So what you’re saying is…you gave me her room?" Ryan asked.
"Well, we added a guest to your room."
"So there are two beds in my room?"
"Um…let me check…actually, no. There’s one queen sized bed."
"Okay, well we know what went wrong so can we just fix it. I’m really tired." Grace rubbed her forehead.
"Actually we’re booked solid. There’s a medical convention in town and since this is a university city…" the manager shrugged as if that information spoke for itself.
"So what you’re telling me is that because of your mistake, I’m left to sleep in my car? Is that what you’re saying?" Grace positioned herself for a fight.
Ryan watched Grace’s temper flare. He tried to hide the smile that threatened to smile across his face. It had been a long time since he’d seen Grace in action. He had always liked her feisty nature.
"This is all my fault, so, Grace, you take the room and I’ll sleep in the car,” Ryan offered.
"No way. This is their fault and they’re going to fix it!" Grace pointed at the front desk personnel. "Can you call another hotel or something?"
"We can, but we’ve been calling all night for other customers and I don’t know of any vacancies in the area. But we will keep trying,” the manager assured them.
"Is there a hotel manager I can speak to?" Grace wasn’t quite satisfied.
The front desk manager looked concerned that Grace wanted to talk her complaint higher, but she picked up the phone anyway.
Shortly after, a man resembling a used car salesman emerged from an office across the hall. He wore a very insincere smile and nodded a lot. He wasn’t much help, telling Grace that even their most expensive suites were engaged for the convention. He did offer to waive the charge on Ryan’s room and to contact them as soon as something else became available, but as of right then, they were stuck.
Ryan pulled Grace aside so that he could speak to her without the audience of the hotel staff listening in.
"Let’s just take the room, get rested up a bit and get something to eat. I’m sure we’ll be able to think better when we’ve got full bellies." Ryan smiled.
"Ryan, I’m exhausted and I don’t want to spend the night searching for a place to sleep. And Matthew’s surgery is at ten tomorrow morning. I need to get some sleep." Grace’s weariness was beginning to show.
Ryan handed Grace his room key.
"And what are you going to do?" Grace asked him.
Ryan shrugged. "Right now, I’m going to get something to eat. After that…who knows."
"Should we just share a room?"
"I don’t think we have any choice."
They had both finally come to the only obvious solution. When they looked over at the front desk, they saw that the manager had also realized this.
When Ryan and Grace entered their hotel room, Grace looked over at the bed and then back at Ryan. He seemed to read her mind.
"I can ask them to bring in a cot or something,” he suggested.
"That’ll work." Grace had forgotten all about cots.
Apparently she was the only one, because when they called down to the front desk to request one, there were none available.
"This just isn’t our lucky night." Ryan sighed.
"Yeah, or the universe really wants us to sleep together." Grace attempted a joke. When she saw the look on Ryan’s face, she tried to rephrase her statement. "I didn’t mean sleep together. Just share a bed." The more she spoke the worse it sounded. "So you’re going out for food?"
"Yeah." Ryan answered. "Do you want something?"
"I’m so tired I don’t even want to think about eating, but then I’ll probably wake up in the middle of the night ravenous. I’ll take some chicken from wherever you go."
When Ryan left, Grace took that opportunity to jump in the shower. She didn’t want to be naked while he was actually in the room with her.
The shower did a lot to calm her frazzled nerves. The heat lamp in the bathroom penetrated her aching muscles and relaxed her even more than the shower had. She dried herself off before wrapping herself in the hotel robe. She loved hotel robes.
As Grace rummaged through her suitcase it became quickly apparent that none of her pajamas were suitable for sharing a bed with another person. She usually slept in a T-shirt and underwear, something she had brought an abundance of. However, if she wore that, coupled with the comment she’d made earlier, Ryan would definitely think she was coming on to him. And that couldn’t have been further from the truth.
When Ryan finally returned, Grace was under the covers with the sheet pulled up to her chin. The white terrycloth robe was visible on her shoulders.
"I do tonight,” Grace said as she accepted her chicken sandwich from him.
"Oh yeah…I just sleep in boxers. That’s all I have,” Ryan said apologetically.
"It’s not like we were planning to share a room or anything,” Grace said.
